


Expecto Patronum

by translorastyrell (nerddowell)



Series: Drabbles + ficlets [11]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Fluff, Gryffindor Loras, Loras hates homework so Renly helps him out, M/M, Patronus, Ravenclaw Renly, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 19:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15103442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/translorastyrell
Summary: ‘Mormont’s set ten inches on the use of the Patronus charm and I can’t even bloody cast one, let alone write about it.’





	Expecto Patronum

Renly was chewing the end of his quill contemplatively, rereading the last sentence of his Transfiguration homework in the study hall below Ravenclaw tower, when Loras slammed his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook down on the table next to him and slid into the empty space on the bench. Technically speaking, students were supposed to stick to their own houses during study periods, and Loras, as a third-year Gryffindor, belonged on the opposite side of the hall to his current position. However, most of the professors had by now given up on trying to make Loras follow that particular rule because whenever he was challenged on it, he just ignored them. He’d had more detentions and points taken for disobedience than any other student in Gryffindor, possibly with the exception of Jaime Lannister in seventh year, who kept deliberately blatching other students on the Quidditch pitch.

Loras laid his head on the textbook and groaned loudly, earning himself a shush and a glower from several students around them. As per usual, he ignored them entirely, and groaned again, louder, for Renly’s benefit.

‘What is it, Loras?’ he asked as he scratched out a line of his own homework to rewrite it, with less meaning and more words to fill up the last four inches of parchment ordered by Professor H’ghar.

Loras’ amateur dramatics over homework occurred every night during study hall, so he was used to it by now and didn’t let it distract him. Loras huffed and prodded Renly with his quill.

‘Mormont’s set ten inches on the use of the Patronus charm and I can’t even bloody cast one, let alone write about it.’

‘What does the textbook say?’ Renly asked, finishing the last sentence of his essay with a flourish. He rolled up the scroll of parchment and shoved it into his bag, stoppering his inkwell and returning that, too, to its pouch in his rucksack before finally turning to Loras.

‘I don’t know!’

‘Well, why don’t you open your book then?’ Renly said in exasperation. ‘Honestly, Loras, one day you’re going to have to learn to do your homework yourself. I can’t write it for you every time.’

‘But you’re so good at it,’ Loras wheedled, batting his eyelashes, ‘and if I start writing it now then Mormont’s going to know something’s up and I’ll get detention, again.’

‘You deserve another detention for taking advantage of my good nature,’ Renly told him, only half joking, but pulled the textbook towards himself to take a better look all the same. The Patronus charm, in all fairness to Loras, was a difficult spell to master from what he remembered of his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, a lot more defensive spells were back on the syllabus, including ones that had previously been considered unnecessary. After all, if the Dementors had broken away from Ministry control once before, who’s to say they wouldn’t again?

The thought sent a shiver down Renly’s spine, and he refocused his attention on reading through Arsenius Jigger’s long-winded explanation about the performance and usages of the spell. Scribbling some notes on a spare piece of parchment helpfully provided by Loras, he copied down all of the important information the younger boy would need to complete his essay and gave the textbook back.

‘There. That’s everything you need to know, translated into Loras.’ He grinned at his friend. ‘Or should I say, _Patronus Charm for Dummies_?’

He hadn’t believed Brienne when she’d told him there was a Muggle version of the famous wizarding manuals for Squibs, but she’d produced a Rugby for Dummies book (rugby, she informed them, was sort of a Muggle form of quidditch played on the ground, with only one ball but no fewer injuries and clashes) to show him. He’d found it entertaining enough, although it disappointed him that none of the diagrams actually moved like they did in the _For Squibs_ series, and the sport itself didn’t seem all that interesting.

Loras glowered at him, swatting his head with the roll of parchment, and continued to grumble to himself for the next hour as he filled the page with his messy scrawl. He asked Renly to look over it for him afterwards – or rather, shoved it under Renly’s nose and demanded he look through it in case Loras had missed anything important – and wouldn’t stop badgering him until Renly grudgingly acquiesced. He gave it a quick once-over, proclaimed it passable enough that Mormont wouldn’t have any doubts that Loras had written it himself, and was rewarded with one of Loras’ trademark beaming smiles.

* * *

Loras caught him again as he was sitting by the lake one afternoon after class, _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ open on his chest and the detritus of a Herbology lesson still muddying his robes. His blue Ravenclaw tie was covered in compost and there was a strong smell of _Mimbulus mimbletonia_ sap permeating his jumper where a large stain had spread; Renly noticed neither of those things, however, because he was asleep on the shore of the lake, hat over his face to block out the sunlight and snoring softly.

‘I still can’t do it!’ Loras wailed, flopping down next to him, and Renly startled awake.

Renly hummed groggily by way of an answer, and Loras poked him with the tip of his wand, singeing a small hole in his robes.

‘I said, I still can’t do that bloody Patronus charm.’

‘It’s not easy,’ Renly mumbled, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, ‘it takes practise.’

‘I bet you can do it,’ Loras grumbled petulantly, and Renly rolled his eyes.

‘Of course I can do it, I’m a fifth year. I’ve had two years of practise more than you already.’

Loras beamed, all misery forgotten. ‘Excellent! Then you can teach me.’

‘No, Loras, I’ve got my own homework to worry about.’

Renly did not, in fact, have homework to worry about, but he had his reasons for not wanting to be alone with Loras, the Patronus charm, and the inevitable awkwardness that would follow.

‘Please.’ Loras’ eyes were wide and bright as liquid amber, beseeching as he gazed at Renly with a hopeful expression on his face. Renly could never deny Loras anything when he looked at him like that, a fact that Loras knew and manipulated all the time, to the point that his brother Willas – a seventh year prefect in Ravenclaw – was always telling Renly to stand up for himself and tell Loras ‘no’ every once in a while. Not that it did any good. Loras had Renly wrapped around his little finger, and both of them knew it.

‘Fine,’ he said, grumpy, and stood up slowly, collecting his bag and books from the floor. ‘We’ll practise in the Room of Requirement.’

Loras followed him obediently, up six flights of moving staircases and threading through the maze of corridors on the seventh floor of the castle to stand before the empty wall where the door would materialise. Renly closed his eyes and thought hard about needing a safe space to practise, and tried not to let thoughts about what else he would like from the room pop into his head. When he opened them again, the door had appeared, and he stepped through into a wide duelling chamber, lined with mirrors and bearing a trunk that wriggled and shook with the movements of whatever was trapped inside.

Loras approached the trunk warily, nudging it with his toe. Something inside crashed, and he leapt back, turning accusing eyes on Renly.

‘Please tell me you didn’t actually ask the room to trap a real Dementor in there.’

‘No.’ Renly shook his head. ‘It should just be a boggart.’

‘But I’m not afraid of Dementors,’ Loras told him, frowning. ‘Not the most afraid of them, anyway.’

‘You should be,’ Renly told him, ‘they terrify me.’

He Summoned a nearby chalkboard and wrote on it the incantation and a diagram of the required wrist movement, the way Professor Mormont had done for his class when they had studied the charm in their third year, before taking hold of Loras’ hand and gently guiding him through it.

‘That’s it – a sort of circular movement – no, less waving it around – small – yeah, like that.’ He smiled at Loras, who squinted at the diagram on the chalkboard before trying again. It took a few more tries, both with Renly’s physical guidance and without; eventually, once he seemed to have got it right more often than not, Renly moved onto the incantation.

‘Expecto patronum, I know–’

‘It’s not just a case of knowing the spell, Loras, you have to back it up. You have to think of the best memory you can find, the moment where you felt the happiest, and let that fill you up. Focus on it, as hard as you can, focus on that feeling, and then say the words. And don’t worry if you can’t do it straightaway,’ he said, squeezing Loras’ shoulder gently, ‘it’s really advanced magic.’

‘But you can do it, and you’re only a fifth year.’ Loras scowled.

‘I needed it,’ Renly said quietly, almost to himself. Loras watched him for a moment, concerned, as Renly dipped his head and shook his hair out, hiding his handsome face behind a veil of black strands like silk, before turning a brilliant – if visibly false – smile back to Loras. ‘Have a go.’

Loras scrunched up his face in concentration, closing his eyes for several seconds before flicking his wand in the circular motion he’d been practising and hollering, ‘ _Expecto patronum_!’

Nothing happened.

Renly was quick to soothe him, running a hand through his mussed curls. ‘Don’t worry. I didn’t get it first try either, not even forty-first try.’

‘Show me yours,’ Loras insisted, his face set as he watched the smooth movement of Renly’s arm and the movement of his lips as they formed the words.

‘ _Expecto patronum_!’

A stag, liquid, ethereal, silver-white, flowed out of the tip of Renly’s wand to canter – if that was the right word – around the classroom, tossing its head and displaying its massive rack of antlers to Loras’ wide eyes. He’d known Renly was a wizard particularly gifted at charms and transfigurative spells, as many of those in Ravenclaw were; but he’d also been half-convinced that Renly was lying when he said he could conjure a full Patronus. All the same, here one was, currently nuzzling at Renly’s hand like a pet begging for treats, and he had no choice but to believe it.

The stag dissipated into the air like smoke as Renly turned to Loras, blushing from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair. He remembered telling Loras that the Baratheon ancestral coat of arms had been a crowned stag prancing on a golden field, and it seemed like such a cliché that his Patronus should match. That said, Loras’ Patronus would be weirder still if it matched the Tyrell coat of arms – Renly had yet to see or even hear about a rose providing successful protection against a Lethiform or a Dementor.

Loras closed his eyes to try again. He pictured his happy thought as fiercely as he could in his mind’s eye, determined to see his own silver animal gambolling around his feet when he opened them again, but the best he had managed was a weak white glow from the end of his wand that even a Squib’s _lumos_ would probably put to shame.

He sighed, dejected, and Renly wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

‘You’ll get it. Don’t worry.’

* * *

They practised again every night for a fortnight, hours at a time, until Loras was too frustrated and Renly too exhausted to continue. Renly took Loras for chocolate frogs and every flavour beans in the Ravenclaw common room every night, settling him down in the best, most overstuffed armchair by the fire, and talked him through it, over and over again. Loras groaned, insisting that he didn’t need to be told a thousand times how to conjure it, but all the same, he never managed more than that weak white glow in all of their time practising, and their summer term exams were coming up quickly.

One night, Renly asked him what the memory he was using was, and Loras hesitated.

‘I know it’s kind of a personal question,’ Renly mumbled, his cheeks red, ‘but if it’s not working, we need to find out why.’

‘It’s not… it’s not a memory, as such,’ Loras told him, biting at his lip. ‘More a dream.’

‘A dream?’

‘Yeah. But it was a dream that made me really happy, the – the happiest dream I could imagine, and it was the first thing I thought of when you said my happiest memory.’

‘What was it?’

‘It was…’ Loras sighed, twisting his fingers in his robes awkwardly. Trust Renly to ask exactly the question Loras had been hoping he’d avoid. Because how do you tell your best friend who is trying to teach you how to do something that you’ve been dreaming about kissing him for months, and that the dream where he finally reciprocated was the happiest memory you could bring up? Pathetic. A Patronus came from a memory, something real, not some half-formed secret hope lurking in the pit of your stomach.

‘I… I dreamed I kissed you.’

Renly’s breath caught in his throat. ‘A-and then what?’

‘In the dream, you kissed me back.’ Loras’ cheeks were flaming, his eyes studiously fixed on his shoes, and Renly’s heart was pounding in his chest hard enough that he was sure Loras could hear the thunder of his pulse.

‘I did?’

‘Yes.’ He finally looked up, and to Renly’s shock, there were tears in his brown eyes, his lip wobbling. ‘Gods, Renly, please don’t hate me, I’m sorry. It was – it was just a dream–’

Renly stepped forwards, wrapping his hand around Loras’ delicate wrist, and kissed him. Loras’ lips against his were warm and soft, chapped a little where they’d burned in the sun a week before; they parted on a sigh when he slipped his other hand into Loras’ hair, coaxing his head into tilting up so that Renly could deepen the kiss, and for a thirteen-year-old, Loras certainly knew what he was doing.

They kissed for what felt like hours, Loras’ hands on Renly’s shoulders and Renly’s hands in Loras’ hair; they kissed long and slow and gentle until both of them had forgotten how to breathe, locked in one another’s embrace and entirely lost in the moment. Eventually, Renly pulled away, and Loras took a deep, shaky breath in, his eyes wide.

‘You kissed me,’ he said, dumbly, and Renly smiled.

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted it to be a memory, not a dream,’ Renly murmured, ‘and because I’ve been using the same thing since I met you.’

Loras threw his arms around Renly’s neck and kissed him again, fierce this time, crushing their lips together and demanding entrance with his tongue; Renly let him in, moaning softly and feeling his stomach swoop pleasantly as Loras pressed their bodies closer, so close they felt like they would never be prised apart. They broke away when they needed to breathe, and Renly pressed another kiss to Loras’ forehead as he whispered, ‘Try again.’

Loras closed his eyes, thought hard about it, and opened his eyes again to the unmistakeable form of a black stallion chasing Renly’s stag around the room, snorting and tossing its mane. Renly grinned at him, pride bursting in his blue eyes, and Loras reached out to tangle their fingers together.


End file.
